Chapter VIII

CONTESTEDBORDERS IN THECAUCASUS

Turkey's Policies in Transcaucasia

Freddy De Pauw

Introduction
The independence of the former Soviet republics raised high hopes
in Turkey. Turkish politicians, who had until then been only
vaguely aware of the existence of "other Turks" in the Soviet
Union, re-discovered "Turan", the world of 120 million Turkic
speakers. The independence of Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and the
Central Asian republics of Turkmenia, Uzbekistan and Kirghistan
seemed to pave the way for a unification of all the Turkic
populations in the region, including the Turkish-Tatar
populations in the Russian Federation. It also looked as if
Turkey would be able to extend its model as a secular state in
the Islamic world and strengthen its strategic position as a
bridgehead between East and West. It was striving for a leading
role in a region extending from the Adriatic Sea to China,
including the Central Asian republics, the Caucasus, the region
around the Black Sea and the Balkans. Finally, Turkey expected
important economic benefits from the dissolution of the Soviet
Union. The Turks received support from the former Soviet Union
itself. Leaders like Islam Karimov of Uzbekistan dreamed of a
unified parliament for a Great Turkey. Even the Christian
Gagaouzians in Moldova turned to Ankara for assistance.

Western support for Turkey's plans to extend its sphere of
influence was unequivocal. During the cold war, Turkey's long
common border with the Soviet Union gave it a very strategic
position in the Western camp. It was also a neighbour of Israel's
enemies, Syria (with whom it had a territorial dispute) and Iran.
Turkey again proved its strategic position before and during the
Gulf War against Iraq. And, as a country rich in water, it had a
very important asset in its relationship with its Arab
neighbours. In November 1992, the Wall Street Journal summarized
thus the new perception of Turkey in leading circles in the West:
"Turkey is trying to help new Muslim countries become secular
democracies. It is acting as a bridge between the West, the
Balkans and the Middle East. It is continuing its role as the
West's vital security arm... In a region of old hostilities where
weapons are everywhere and ethnic unrest is commonplace, Turkey's
friendship is more vital to the West than ever".(1)

Five years have passed since the demise of the Soviet Union,
and many of the Turkish expectations have not materialized.
Turkey has been confronted by serious obstacles in extending its
sphere of influence. It is cut off from the new Turkish world,
except for a few miles of common border - a bridge, in fact -
with Nakhichevan, an Azeri enclave in Armenia.

In the cultural sphere, there have been only limited gains.
During his trip through his "new world" in the spring of 1992,
for example, Prime Minister Suleyman Demirel achieved some
success when he promised Turkish satellite TV, by diverting
eastwards a project to provide Turkish TV for the Turkish
population in Germany. In Azerbaijan and elsewhere, Turkey waged
- and, in December 1991, won - an alphabet war with Iran and
Saudi Arabia to replace the Cyrillic alphabet with the Latin
instead of the Arabic one.(2) The cultural unity of the
Turkic-speaking world should not be exagerated. The first "Turkic
summit", in November 1992 in Ankara, had to engage Russians to
interpret between the participants. Turkish embassies in the new
republics had to employ Meskhetes - Turkified Georgians who were
deported by Stalin to Central Asia and are regarded there as
"Turks". The embassies were also confronted by enmities between
"Turks": in 1989, one hundred or so Meskhets were slaughtered by
Uzbeks.

Turkey has only limited political and economic resources for
extending its influence in the former Soviet Union. The war
entered into to counter the Kurdish struggle for autonomy damaged
the country's democratic and human rights credentials in the rest
of the world. Although it generally manages to take advantage of
its close links with the West, Turkey is always in danger of
being seen as a Western tool. Nor is the Turkish economy - with
its high inflation rate and structural unemployment - in good
shape for meeting the new challenges.

The dream cherished by Turkey in 1991 - of becoming a
leading power in the region - has not come true. This failure may
be judged more clearly in the light of Turkish policies in the
Karabakh conflict and in the negotiations on oil and pipelines.
In both cases, the gap between expectations and real
possibilities became obvious.(3)

Turkey could not avoid taking a position of its own in the war
between Azerbaijan and Armenia over Nagorno-Karabakh. The issue
was not just a diplomatic one: it spilled over into internal
policies in which the president, Turgut Ozal, became very much
involved.

For obvious geographical reasons, Azerbaijan forms the
principal link between Turkey and Central Asia. Together with the
Crimea, it had been the cradle of the Pan-Turkism which emerged
among Turkic intellectuals. These had developed a concept of
linguistic and cultural unity in order to protect themselves
against a tide of Russification under tsarist rule. This idea
spread to their neighbours in the dying Ottoman Empire and was
revived briefly in Turkey after the collapse of the Soviet Union.
In 1991, it seemed for a while as if old dreams could come true.

As soon as Azerbaijan became independent, in 1991, the
leaders of that republic established close relations with Turkey
in order to receive technical and cultural assistance and to
counterbalance the Russian influence. Relations between
Azerbaijan and Turkey became even more intense after the 1992
election victory of Abulfaz Elcibey, the Popular Front candidate.
Elcibey promised that the country of Ataturk would participate
fully in the exploitation of Azerbaijani oil wealth - for which
Turkey had already fought after the first world war.

But despite its victory in the dispute over the alphabet in
December 1991, and notwithstanding cultural bonds and the
rhetoric of the Azeri leadership, Turkey still ended up as a
bystander in the ensuing events. In particular, it failed to play
a leading role in the Armenian-Azeri conflict. As it happened,
the Turkish leaders had to take into account factors other than
their relations with Baku. In the first place, Turkey was
striving to build good relations with Russia. Secondly, the large
Armenian diaspora in France and the United States, which was
exerting strong pressure in favour of Armenia, hindered Turkey in
its diplomatic efforts to help Azerbaijan. Thirdly, the NATO
partners were reluctant to take too great a risk in such an
explosive region. Fourthly, the unstable internal political
situation in Turkey did not favour the government's ambitions.(4)

In 1992 and 1993, public opinion in Turkey was shocked by
reported massacres of Azeris by Armenian militias. The events
received widespread coverage in the Turkish press, and President
Turgut Ozal spoke for many Turks when he warned the Armenians
that Turkey could not simply stand by and watch their victories
on Azerbaijani territory. When, in May 1992, Armenian attacks
were reported on the Azerbaijani enclave of Nakhichevan, even the
possibility of Turkish military intervention was seriously
discussed in Ankara. Turkey considered that the 1921 Treaty of
Kars with Moscow gave it the right to intervene in a conflict
regarding the status of the Nakhichevan enclave. The Russian
Minister of defence immediately put an end to this speculation by
declaring that such intervention could trigger a third world war.

Suleyman Demirel, Turkish prime minister until Ozal's death
in April 1993, was less outspoken than the late Turkish
president. He even incurred Baku's wrath when, at the start of
the winter of 1992, he gave the go-ahead for Western help to
"suffering Armenia". Because of the Azeri blockade and bomb
attacks on the pipelines running through Georgia to Armenia, in
1992-1993 the Armenians were suffering a very severe, cold
winter. The inhabitants of Erevan were cutting down all the trees
they could find. The Armenian diaspora, meanwhile, was very
efficiently organizing material support and putting pressure on
the American and French governments to send help, and fuel first
and foremost. The only way this could be done was through Turkey.

Azeri disappointment was particularly acute when, in the
summer of 1993, the Armenians launched highly successful attacks
against their positions in southern Azerbaijan. Throughout the
winter, Turkey had opened its borders to humanitarian aid, which
provided Armenia with energy supplies - part of which seemed to
have been used for military purposes. In the eyes of many
Azerbaijanis, this dealt a strong blow to Turkish credibility and
prestige.(5)

Turkey's allowing humanitarian aid for Armenia to pass
through its territory did not prevent Demirel from giving all the
diplomatic support he could to Azerbaijan, especially in the
United Nations. Turkey wanted to prevent Iran from playing the
role of peacemaker, and also to prevent Russia from reinforcing
its position in Transcaucasia, by military means or otherwise.
The same day that Karabakh-Armenian troops captured Kelbadjar,
Demirel declared that his country wanted to establish good
relations with its neighbours, Armenia and Azerbaijan - on the
same terms.(6) Turkey's reaction to this Armenian agression
against Azerbaijan was strong, but only verbal. Most of the
statements from Turkish leaders carried a threatening tone. In
April 1993, Prime Minister Demirel said that nobody should
imagine that his country would abandon Azerbaijan to its fate.
But he added that Turkey was trying to solve the problem with a
cool head. Ankara did indeed undertake numerous diplomatic
initiatives, mainly in the UN and at the CSCE. Turkey conveyed
its views to the five permanent members of the UN, saying that
Armenia was not complying with UN resolutions and that its
expansionist policy was unacceptable. Together with the US and
the Russian Federation, Ankara devised a peace plan for
Nagorno-Karabakh in May 1993 and later, in July 1993, launched
what the Turkish press called "a diplomatic attack". This was
strong wording for "telephone diplomacy" with US President Bill
Clinton, President Boris Yeltsin of the Russian Federation and
French President FranÁois Mitterrand, and for summoning the
representatives of Sweden, the then chair of the CSCE and Italy,
chair of the "Minsk group" of the CSCE. In the meantime, it used
the Turkic news networks to spread Turkey's views (satellite TV
broadcasting to the Turkic world and the "Union of Turkic World
News Agencies", which held its first meeting in Ankara on 8 and 9
April 1993.)(7)

The summit of ECO (the Economic Co-Operation Organisation,
which included Turkey, Afghanistan, Iran, Kazakhstan, Kirghistan,
Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, Pakistan and Azerbaijan) in
Istanbul in July 1993 was another opportunity for condemning
Armenia and calling for an immediate ceasefire. The conference
took place just after the overthrow of Elcibey by Gaidar Aliyev.
Whereas most of the member states were represented by their heads
of state, Azerbaijan sent its deputy prime minister, Resul
Guliyev. In diplomatic terms Turkey stated that Azerbaijan "had
been experiencing internal conflicts and changes in
administration".(8)

Aliyev reversed some of his predecessor's pro-Turkish
decisions, among them a very important oil deal. He also decided
to join the Commonwealth of Independent States, hoping that
Russia would take a more balanced stand in the Azeri-Armenian
conflict. After Aliyev returned to power, the new Turkish
president - Demirel - and his prime minister - Tansu Ciller -
stressed the importance of good relations with Russia. Meanwhile,
the emphasis in bilateral relations shifted more and more to
oil-related issues: the transport of Caspian oil to the
Mediterranean; the exploitation of the oil fields; Russian oil
deliveries to Turkey.

The war in Nagorno-Karabakh did not stop. After the Armenian
attacks on Fizuli and Cebrail and in the area around Agdam,
Turkey took the issue to the UN Security Council on 17 August
1993. At its meeting on 18 August, the Council issued a statement
demanding the immediate, complete and unconditional withdrawal of
Armenian forces from the recently occupied areas. In the same
statement, the UN also demanded that Armenia should not support
the occupying forces, and it reconfirmed the territorial
integrity of Azerbaijan. Turkey insisted that, if Armenia
continued to disregard this statement, sanctions would be
necessary "against the agressors". Russia, however, would
probably have vetoed such a proposal for sanctions in the
Security Council. Russia did not accept Turkey as a negociator
on Nagorno-Karabakh: "Some people think that Turkey should fill a
vacuum... There is no vacuum. Russia has considerable historical,
economic and political interests in this region", explained
Albert Chernichev, the Russian ambassador in Ankara, in the
Turkish press in April 1993.(9)

After the fall of Elcibey in June 1993, it was some time
before the "new" leadership in Baku gave clear signals to Ankara
that it should not be regarded as a mere tool in the hands of the
Russian leadership. Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Hasan Hasanov
paid a short visit to Turkey on 28-29 December 1993. The two
sides "agreed that using force to change the border of the Azeri
enclave of Nakhichevan violates the 1921 Treaty of Kars".(10)
Aliyev was the strongman of Nakhichevan, where he had his power
base even during what were (for him) the worst periods.
Opposition circles in Baku even complained about the strong
influence the Nakhichevan people had in the central Azerbaijani
power structure. Hence the importance of the Nakhichevan issue at
the diplomatic level. But this was also a signal from Baku to
Moscow that the Treaty of Kars could be used as a diplomatic
lever to counterbalance the growing Russian influence.

Gaidar Aliyev visited Turkey shortly afterwards, from 8 to
11 February, 1994. On his visit he was accompanied by an
80-person strong delegation, reflecting the importance he
attached to closer relations with Turkey. President Demirel once
again stated that Turkey would continue to support Azerbaijan's
"just claims" in international forums. He strongly condemned the
"Armenian attacks" and - despite the fact that Aliyev had been a
prominent KGB and party leader - promised "help to our Azeri
brothers in their efforts to rebuild a civil democratic state
after seventy years of longing". Aliyev said he wanted to
recover the lost territory and that he was trying to get support
from Turkey, the USA and Russia in order to end the war over
Nagorno-Karabakh by peaceful means. "Azerbaijan lives only with
its own soldiers and it will continue to do so... I consistently
repeat that our Turkish brothers, our friends, should never doubt
that we will ever, under any circumstances, give up the
independence of Azerbaijan".(11) Both leaders used the formula "one
nation, two states" to describe the bonds joining them. At the
same time, Aliyev tried to persuade Turkish investors that his
country had great economic potential and was safe to invest in.

After signing the "Partnership for Peace" in Brussels on 5
May 1994, Aliyev went straight to Ankara for a short "working
visit to discuss future political and military strategies", as
the Turkish press reported. An official statement from the
Turkish Presidential Press Centre mentioned that "during their
meeting, the two presidents had a comprehensive exchange of views
regarding bilateral relations and regional problems". Demirel
repeated once again that the Armenian attacks on Azerbaijan
"upset stability in the region" and "must be stopped" and gave
his support to the CSCE's Minsk Group. By demonstrating close
co-operation with Turkey, with whom Russia was involved in a
bitter dispute on oil issues, Aliyev hoped to persuade Moscow to
use its influence on Armenia.(12) Shortly afterwards, Demirel went
on a state visit to the Ukraine and Moldova, where he called on
the Crimean Turks (Tatars) to "act with caution". He wanted to
demonstrate the moderating role Turkey could play in the former
Soviet Union. In Moldova he discussed the issue of the Gagauz
Turks, described as a bridge between Turkey and Moldova. Moscow
disliked high-level Turkish contacts with the breakaway Republic
of Chechnya, regarding them as a form of support for the
separatist leadership of Dudayev.

At the same time, Turkey was building stronger relations
with Iran. 13 June 1994 in Ankara saw the start of a
Turco-Iranian summit on terrorism with the participation of the
Turkish Minister of the Interior, Nahit Mentese, and an Iranian
delegation headed by Minister of Interior Ali Muhammed
Besarati.(13) On 25 July, Demirel paid a three-day visit to
Teheran. Besides the "terrorist issue" (Turkish Kurds and Iranian
"Mujaheddin"), other bilateral and regional subjects were
discussed: Nagorno-Karabakh and the pipeline projects for
Azerbaijani and Kazakh oil.

Turkey could not prevent the growing Russian influence in
Transcaucasia. Dogan Gures, General Chief of Staff of the Turkish
Armed Forces, declared that he was prepared to send to the
Karabakh conflict as many soldiers as the government of
Azerbaijan requested.(14) "We will not permit interference by
Turkish troops" was the quick reaction of Pavel Grachev, the
Russian Minister of Defence, who added that "Russia has its own
interests in Azerbaijan".

The implosion of the Soviet Union presented Turkey with new
prospects not only in Central Asia and Transcaucasia, but also in
Russia itself, especially in the economic field. Turkey granted
Russia a credit of 1.15 billion dollars. In 1994, more than 250
Turkish firms were working for the Russian market, especially in
the construction business. Russia was easily the most important
trading partner Turkey had in the CIS, accounting for about five
times its volume of trade with all the Turkic republics
combined.(15) In May 1994 a framework economic agreement was
concluded, but the Russian officials who were due to travel to
Ankara to sign it did not arrive. This was not the first time
that Moscow showed signs of irritation, especially where the many
issues involving oil were concerned.

In Soviet times, the oil wealth of Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan
had already been the centre of a struggle between several states
and oil companies. With the help of Eduard Shevardnadze, Chevron
had struck a major oil deal on the Tengiz fields in Kazakhstan.
Turkey was hoping to get its share of the Caspian region's oil
wealth by participating in the exploitation and by transporting
this oil to its Mediterranean coast. In March 1993, when Elcibey
was in power, a first oil pipeline agreement was signed between
Turkey and Azerbaijan. A pipeline was to carry crude oil from
Azerbaijan (and possibly Kazakhstan), via Iran, to Turkey's
Mediterranean port of Ceyhan. The pipeline was designed to carry
40 million tons of oil a year (25 million from Azerbaijan and 15
million from Kazakhstan). As the pipeline had to pass through
Armenia, an end to the turmoil in Transcaucasia was more
necessary than ever. Turkey therefore put pressure on Elcibey to
accept a Turkish-Russian peace proposal. The Turkish project had
to compete with others, such as the one favoured by Georgia. This
project presented different geopolitical risks. It involved a
pipeline under the Caspian Sea, which would transport oil via
Azerbaijan to the Georgian Sea port of Poti. The Oman-backed
Caspian Pipeline Consortium proposed to pump oil from Kazakhstan
to the Russian Black Sea port of Novorossiysk.

Russia strongly opposed any pipeline project that would
neglect Russian interests. Its favoured option included
Novorossiysk, the Black Sea port from which the oil would go
through the Straits of the Bosporus and the Dardanelles to the
Mediterranean. Turkey rejected this project as not feasible on
ecological and security grounds. According to the "Straits
Report", published jointly in April 1994 by the managers of the
Turkish oil company Botas and the Transport Ministry, traffic in
the Straits was already so heavy that any addition to it,
especially tankers, should be refused. The Turkish report
concluded that neither the Baku-Poti nor the Baku-Novorossiysk
routes had any future.(16)

Oil policies changed after the fall of Elcibey. Aliyev
reversed some oil decisions made by his predecessor, under whose
leadership a consortium had been formed for the exploitation of
the offshore oil. The consortium consisted of the American
companies Amoco, Pennzoil, McDermott and Unocal, the British BP,
Norwegian Statoil, Turkish TPAO and Azerbaijani Socar. Aliyev
suspended the agreements with these pending the results of
further study. The Turkish press reported in August 1993 that
Aliyev had assured Turkish President Demirel, during a telephone
conversation, that Azeri fuel supplies would travel by pipeline
to Turkish port facilities. This message came at a time when
Azerbaijan was in serious trouble on the battlefield and Baku had
to be able to count on diplomatic support from Turkey. Aliyev
also needed support in Moscow to put Russian pressure on Armenia,
leading Russia to adopt "a more balanced attitude" in the
conflict. This could only be done by taking the Russian oil
interests into account. Russia's Lukoil won a 10 percent share in
three of Azerbaijan's main oil fields. Aliyev denounced the
agreement signed by Elcibey with Western oil companies. He strove
for a larger share than the 30 percent the Elcibey government had
been promised.(17) In order to pressurize Moscow, in May 1994 the
leaders of the Azerbaijani state oil company welcomed the
decision taken by the foreign oil concerns at a meeting in
Istanbul, to favour the Turkish option for transporting
Azerbaijani, Kazakh and also Russian oil to the world markets.
Turkey tried to convince Moscow that this project would serve
Russian interests, by holding out the prospect of far greater
economic co-operation - it proposed, for instance, to buy more
Russian oil and military hardware.

The Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the state-run
pipeline company BOTAS and TPAO (Turkish Petroleum Partnership
Company) declared at a press conference on 3 August 1993(18) that
the pipeline project across Turkey via Georgia was gaining favour
among the oil companies involved in Azerbaijan. They added that
transit through Armenia had lost support because of the Armenian
military operations in the region. In August 1993, the Turkish
newspaper Hurriyet(19) reported that some of the Western oil
companies belonging to the consortium (which was to drill for oil
in Azerbaijan) had held a separate meeting in London without
informing either the Azerbaijani authorities or its Turkish
partner Botas. At that meeting, an alternative pipeline project
emerged, with a route from the Thracian Black Sea coast to the
Gulf of Saros in the Aegean Sea. Turkey had said it would not
oppose this option in principle, but called it "uneconomic". To
complicate matters, "Occidental Petroleum", which was working
independently from the consortium, was said to be insisting on a
second pipeline - Baku-Georgia-Erzurum-the Mediterranean - as one
pipeline would not be enough for all the Azerbaijani and Kazakh
oil.(20)

At the same press conference on 3 August, the Turkish
officials repeated that heavy tanker traffic would jeopardize the
security of Istanbul. Already about 5 million tons of crude oil
were being shipped annually through the Straits, but that figure
could increase to 45 or 50 million tonnes as a result of the
exploitation of oil in Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan.(21) In August,
Prime Minister Tansu Ciller received the ambassadors of Germany,
the USA and Russia to explain that stricter regulations were
needed for traffic through the Straits. She declared to the
Russian ambassador, Chernishev, that the situation had changed a
great deal from the time the Montreux Convention (of 1936) was
signed. In an interview with the newspaper "Hurriyet" on 7 August
1993, the Russian ambassador mentioned the very sensitive
"Kurdish factor" as a possible threat to the Baku-Ceyhan
pipeline. This was not meant as a warning, he said after being
summoned to the Foreign Ministry. But a warning it was.

It became obvious in the summer of 1993 that the oil wealth
of Azerbaijan (and Kazakhstan) - its exploitation as well as its
transportation - was becoming an ever more important element in
relations between Moscow and Ankara. Security was an important
factor for the Western companies, who gave a rather cool
reception to the idea of a pipeline going through Iranian
territory to Turkey. The conflicts in Trancaucasia, and
particularly the one between Azeris and Armenians, was
inextricably bound up with the oil interests. Moscow could use
insecurity in Transcaucasia as a trump card in its negotiations
with the West.

For Russia, the continued use of Russian ports as refineries
would have the advantage of making the new oil states dependent
on Russia. In pushing for their pipeline, the Turks were
challenging Russian economic power at a time when Moscow, like
Ankara, was desperate for the hard currency that accompanies oil
flows. In a diplomatic letter to Britain in April 1994, Moscow
demanded veto rights over any resource development project in the
Caspian region, claiming that without its approval any deal would
be illegal. The representative of BP in Baku characterized this
Russian demarche as "a political delaying action, not a legal
move".(22)

The disaster that took place in the Bosporus on 14 March
1994 - when the Greek Cypriot tanker "Nassia" collided with the
Greek Cypriot-registered freighter "Ship Broker", causing several
deaths - was used by the Turkish side as proof that it was too
dangerous to use the Straits as a "petrolway" near a city of ten
million inhabitants like Istanbul. Ankara said that the new
regulations on the Straits would definitely come into force on 1
July 1994.(23) On 25 May, the UN International Maritime
Organization (IMO) approved the Turkish proposals for a security
package. This was regarded by Ankara as a major diplomatic
victory over Russia. But Russia did not give up easily.(24) The
Russian Energy Minister, Yuri Shafranik, warned international oil
companies in June 1994 that oil and gas investments in the
Caspian area were fraught with risk because there was no
agreement on how to divide up the Caspian Sea.(25) The Russian
attitude, together with the uncertainties in Baku, led to
stalemate in the negotiations between the Western oil consortium
and the Azerbaijani authorities.

In July 1994, the Russian press circulated rumours of a
possible coup against Aliyev, who was still refusing to sign a
Russian-sponsored peace plan for Karabakh and was not taking a
clear stand on the oil question. The Russian press suggested that
a come-back by Azerbaijani leader Ayaz Mutalibov would be
favourable for Russian interests.(26) Aliyev did not hesitate to
look for allies in Saudi-Arabia, Oman and Iran as possible
competitors with Western interests.

In an interview with Reuters on 28 June 1994, Volkan Vural,
an influential foreign policy adviser to Turkish Prime Minister
Ciller, explicitly linked the question of instability in the
Caucasus to the pipeline issue, stating that "Karabakh is
stabilising and peace efforts would have a positive impact...
There is no alternative to peace. Both countries [i.e.,
Azerbaijan and Armenia] are exhausted and the parameters of the
solution are there - Karabakh would remain Azeri territory but
with cultural autonomy and ties to Armenia, with a special status
to be agreed". Vural also emphasized that Ankara had no interest
in exluding Russia from plans to transport oil from Azerbaijan to
the West.(27)

In this context, the conflicts in Transcaucasia - mainly the
war between Azeris and Armenians - became just one factor in the
rivalry between Russia and Turkey, with a number of other
important players in the game - the oil companies and their
states. Russia used the Karabakh conflict to put pressure on Baku
to accept the idea of a common defence space for the CIS, to
obtain a greater share of the oil exploitation and to get support
for Russian-bound oil transport. As Turkey was much weaker in the
field, it used the Bosporus regulations to overcome objections
about lack of security, while hoping that the Armenians would
yield to any pressure that might come from Russia. Baku had most
at stake: giving in to Moscow meant accepting serious limitations
on its sovereignty, but its weak position in the war with
Armenia, together with the fact that Moscow had other allies to
fall back on, did not leave Baku with much choice.

On 20 September 1994, a nine-member consortium led by
British Petroleum and Statoil (a Norwegian company) agreed to
invest about 8 billion US dollars over 30 years in developing
three Azerbaijani fields (the Azeri, Chirag and Guneshli fields),
which contain about 4 billion barrels. This exploitation would
triple Azerbaijani oil production. But the question of how to get
the oil from the Caspian Sea to the world market had not yet been
settled. Moscow stuck to a Russian route, if not through the
Bosporus then by transporting the oil from Novorossiysk to
Northern Turkey and from there by pipeline to a Turkish harbour.
That same week, the Bulgarian Minister of Construction, Hristo
Totev, announced that the decision on building a new oil pipeline
from Russia to Greece across Bulgarian territory would be taken
by the end of the year. Tankers would ship the oil from
Novorossyisk to the Bulgarian Black Sea port of Bourgas, and a
pipeline would carry the oil from there to the Greek port of
Alexandropolis. Moscow immediately expressed its opposition to
the 20 September oil agreement signed in Baku. Despite the fact
that the Russian company Lukoil was party to the agreement, the
spokesman for the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs said that
Russia did not recognize the deal ìbecause Caspian resources must
be jointly managedî. In other words, no deal without Russian
consent.

This hostile attitude simply confirms Moscow's aims in the
area. Russia wants to re-integrate the economies of the former
Soviet Union on its own terms. It wants to keep Azerbaijan within
its orbit, regarding it as a part of the vast Turkish ex-Soviet
world where Moscow fears the growing influence of Islam and of
its old rival, Turkey. The September 1994 agreement meant a
further and important internationalization of the area, and of
the conflicts. The Azerbaijani leadership was convinced that the
involvement of western oil companies would make western
governments more supportive of Azerbaijan in its struggles with
Armenia and Russia. Baku was also convinced that not everyone in
Moscow shared the Foreign Affairs Ministry's opposition to the
deal, that the Lukoil company would easily overcome this
opposition and could persuade the Russian government to take a
more pragmatic stand. So the oil issue put a different
perspective on one of the main conflicts in Transcaucasia - that
opposing Azerbaijan and Armenia. The oil wealth is an important
issue in itself, and the Karabakh conflict became intertwined
with it. For Baku, this meant that Russian pressure intensified
because of the stakes involved, but, at the same time, it got
greater leverage thanks to the international dimension. By giving
Russia a share of the oil agreement, master-player Aliyev was
betting that the Russian diplomats would have to give in to the
oil establishment, which would have implications for the conflict
with Armenia. But Moscow will undoubtedly continue to put
pressure on Baku to accept the notion of a common defence space
for the CIS, pressurizing the West - Turkey included - to accept
this idea. Turkey has weak cards compared with Russia. It is
counting on the pragmatic government and business circles in
Russia, and on its membership of the Western alliance, to make
geopolitical and economic gains in Transcaucasia.